


Call of the Night

by GoldSparrow



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Gen, Mystery, Old Gods, Oneshot, Pagan Gods
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-10
Updated: 2020-01-10
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:34:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22195609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoldSparrow/pseuds/GoldSparrow
Summary: Night has fallen and Emrys is called by something, someone he can’t deny.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 44





	Call of the Night

**Author's Note:**

> Just as Merlin was lured by the call of another, so was I by my muse to write this at 3am.

It was a call in the night. 

Merlin woke with a gasp tearing his lips, his quickened breaths coming out in small white clouds. His gaze was pulled to the small window of his small room; the moon shone through the dark clouds with a peculiar brightness tonight. But Merlin didn’t notice it. It was the call beyond which had gripped his attention.

Without so much as a second thought, Merlin rose from underneath the covers of his small cot, his bare feet touching the cold wooden floor. Quietly, like a wraith, he glided down his room's steps and through the physicians quarters, paying no mind to his sleeping mentor snoring peacefully on his bed by the embers of a dying fireplace.

He stepped out the open door and down through the slumbering castle, bright moonlight guiding his steps. He soon tread along the cold, snow adorned cobblestones of the courtyard, through the gate and into the lower town. As he walked, no one, nothing breathing in the town seemed to stir. It was if the whole of Camelot was frozen in a point in time, all laid dormant by the lullaby of the Night. No guards were awake to notice his passing, no soul saw his shadow beyond their home’s shutters. If one _had_ seen him, they would have said that he walked like a sleeping man; eyes wide open, yet mind ensnared in a dream. And if one had reached out to rouse him, he would have slipped through their fingers like the remnants of a forgotten memory. 

Soon Merlin’s feet touched upon the dirt road outside the city, and then the grass of the forest. As he continued, the pull of the call became even stronger. Its sound was as ringing bells, a chorus of leaves in the wind. Its draw was irrefutable. It beckoned him. 

Passing through tight copses of trees, and thick bushes laden with a thin blanket of snow, Merlin soon found himself in a clearing. Magic thrummed across his skin, sang in his head like an orchestra of living energy. At the clearing’s center, stood a large white glowing stag, adorned with many long antlers like the branches of a tree. Its body stood 3 times the height of a man, and its image lit up the whole clearing in a mesmerizing ethereal light. Unlike Camelot which was covered in layers of frost, the clearing was flowing with the lifeblood of rippling spring flowers and warm golden leaves of fall. 

Merlin stepped forward into the warmth before the creature, eyes alight in wonder, and reverence, his irises glowing not in molten gold, but in a ring of _silver_.

"Who are you? Why have you called me here?" The warlock asks, eyes wide and unblinking, despite the beast’s radiant light.

The creature considers the young warlock, then speaks with the echoing whisper of the forest, “I am Cernunnos, the god of this forest and of this land, guardian of life and fertility…” Merlin's heart hitches in his chest. The god's voice was as the sound of a thousand fluttering leaves, the most beautiful bird’s song, a warm yet lonely summer breeze. Merlin could lose himself in its voice, as he could wandering around a field of flowers, or falling into the cold beckoning forever sleep of a snowstorm. But the god speaks once again, waking Merlin, no, Emrys from the fugue before falling in too deep.

"I am dying, Emrys."

"Dying?" Emrys scrunches his face in worry. "But, how can you ‘die?’ You’re—"

"A god?…All things, even gods fall into ruin, Emrys. And though it may be true that my death draws nigh, it does not mean that it is my end…I ask for your help, Emrys."

The god pauses. "The Land has been cursed; it has soaked up the blood of innocents, as well as the unheeded animus from the hearts of slaughtered men, women, and children. With every death of Albion’s chosen children, the miasma of their hatred and cursing in death cut wounds deeper and deeper into the soil, killing and warping the land’s magic. Though I walk the forest and do my best to heal its scars, even I am no longer powerful enough to stop it as my strength continues to grow weaker. If left unattended, magic will be polluted and the heart of the land Albion will be lost to death and dark magic."

"How? What can I do?" Emrys asks, with both a spark hope and dregs of apprehension in his heart.

"You are the Son of the sun, earth and sky—you are no mere mortal; your noble spirit was conceived by the Earth Mother, your human vessel forged by man. You are the bridge between mortals and Old Ones."

The beast lowers his head. "I ask that I may bestow to you what is left of my power so that you may restore this land."

"I…I don’t know if I can," Emrys says, voice not unlike a child’s.

The god walks forward, and lowers its head eye level with the warlock. 

"As the gods created you, your heart is strong, your soul is pure; there is no other vessel that could hold and wield your power otherwise. You have the power to unite Albion, to give life, birth magic back into the land. It will be difficult, but it must be you, Emrys. It is your destiny."

Emry’s brows furrowed, his glowing silver eyes searching for truth in the god’s deep gaze. Finding a truth that he couldn’t quite understand or deny; for denying his destiny that would mean denying Himself. He solemnly nods and lowers his head, and the god walks forward, and places its large forehead against the warlock’s. 

A burst of light follows, a silver ring of energy bursting like a wave throughout the whole forest, the whole land. And there, alone in the clearing, Merlin fell to his knees then to the forest floor. The moon’s light no longer shining upon him, but now shining from within him, as snow like small teardrops began to fall.

**Author's Note:**

> This could be a one shot, maybe not. *shrugs*


End file.
